Takin' a Break...I Think

I've been posting so infrequently lately I feel I should just post an 'on hiatus' message...but I have things to say before I go! And perhaps I won't really 'go'--I seem to recall one Bino Realuyo recently saying he'd be online a lot less and then proceeding to post like mad afterwards--perhaps this is just a fleeting need to give myself permission not to post. I know it's silly, but if I don't blog for more than a few days I feel like I'm, I don't know, being 'bad' somehow. Silly, stupid Catholic guilt.

Anyway, things have been busy busy these last couple weeks. Work is ramping up for end-of-the-year fundraising, as well as evaluation, planning, and welcoming our new Executive Director, Solomon Rivera. I am super-excited about having S. on board and working with him--from what I've seen and heard he is one smart cookie and has incredible enthusiasm and energy for the work. As a fundraiser, you can't ask for much more than that.

I've been writing a lot, mostly transcribing stuff from my notebook to the computer, and editing / adding a little on the way. I want to get all the stuff from my notebooks into electronic format before I start writing more scenes of my novel. I need to see what the bones look like, where the flesh is still thin, where I need to fatten it up. I'm realizing I need some good battle scenes, which I don't feel well-equipped to write. I'm thinking of checking out some other sci-fi books for examples of battle scenes. Any recommendations are most welcome.

In the meantime, I've been watching lots of sci-fi at home on video. I'm a big Star Wars fan and H. is a bit of a Trekkie (no conventions or anything, just memorizing lines and knowing all the characters and movies, you know, softcore stuff), so between the two of us we have a decent amount of sci-fi geekness in our home. We watched the Empire Strikes Back last night--my favorite of the Star Wars films--and I was appalled to see that James Earl Jones was not mentioned in the credits at all for doing the voice of Darth Vader. Disgusting. I mean, come on, if David Prowse is credited, you gotta put James up there too. Lucasfilm racism or did James not want to be credited? A mystery to unravel when I'm bored and need mindless Googling distraction.

I've also been reading Eileen Tabios' recent book, Menage a Trois with the 21st Century on the bus on my way to work (you can really get a lot of reading done on public transit). I'm loving what I've read so far: delicate yet sure-handed poems about desire in the first section, titled Enheduanna, after a Sumerian poet-priestess who wrote love poems to the goddess Innana. I'm thinking I'd like to write a proper review of it when I finish it, which at the rate I read could be months from now! Thanks, Eileen, for the copy, which she sent over when I purchased Pinoy Poetics; I have yet to read that one however; it's on my list for 2005.

Ok, I still don't know whether I'm signing off the blog for awhile or not. Oh, how I hate indecision. But that's the beauty of blogging, no? You can do whatever the f*ck you want! ;-)

Blessings,
Rona